Louisville kindergartener hits 1,000-book mark

Zen Kweli showed up to her first day of kindergarten at Coleridge-Taylor Elementary with an impressive resume.

The 5-year-old, who could already read at a first-grade level, had just spent the last six months tackling 1,000 different books — working her way through multiple Louisville and Southern Indiana libraries and book stores to do so.

Reading that many books is no easy feat for anyone. But Zen's accomplishment is all the more notable after comparing how many kindergarteners show up to their first day of school with virtually no reading experience.

More than 60 percent of Jefferson County Public Schools' kindergarteners went to class in fall 2013 with below-average academic and cognitive skills, according to last year's kindergarten readiness survey.

For some kids, that meant a lack of basic understanding of how to even hold a book, or of knowing that a book is read from front to back and from left to right, said Marco Munoz, an evaluation specialist in JCPS' data management and research office. Some incoming kindergarteners have never had an adult read to them before.

Not having that reading foundation can be costly, Munoz said.

"Long-gone are the days where you can start kindergarten without having some of the basics," Munoz said. He added, "We've got so much work to do. If you don't start on the right foot, it can end up being a self-fulfilling prophecy."

Zen's mother, Clara Maiden, knows the importance of reading for her daughter. It's one reason she's surrounded Zen with books since before the girl was born.

Zen was already an avid reader when Maiden heard about the 1,000 Books Before Kindergarten challenge in January. The Louisville Free Public Library adopted the national program this year as a way to promote early reading.

The library offers enticements for meeting certain milestones, including offering stickers for reading 100 books, a bookmark at the 500-book mark and a certificate at 750 books. At the 1,000 marker, the library gives children their own book to take home and keep.

"When children are exposed to and are reading 1,000 books, that's a tipping point," said Julie Scoskie, director of education and outreach with the library. "At that point, they're establishing a habit of reading and a love of reading."

Soon Zen was flying through the books at her local Portland library location. At first, Maiden didn't know the rules allowed for the same books to be read multiple times, or for her to read books to Zen. But even after they learned all the rules, the pair decided to keep trying for 1,000 unique books that Zen would read herself.

At about 500 books in, Zen's reading list had just about exhausted the little Portland library. Maiden started driving her daughter to the main library branch to read books, then to other libraries, as well. She started using the library's online database to request books from other libraries, in order to cut down on drive time and gas expenses.

The pair would check out 30 or 40 books at a time. Once, after checking out 90 books, librarians had to help escort the two to their car. The last 100 books or so were read across the river in Jeffersonville as the search for unique books continued to widen.

Maiden learned that Zen loves books about animals and dinosaurs. She saw how Zen dreams of seeing the ocean, and doesn't appreciate the made-up words in Dr. Seuss books, preferring to learn real words through her reading. Sitting together and reading, Maiden learned of her daughter's voracious appetite for words. And she learned that reading 1,000 books in six months can be very, very tiring.

JCPS teachers and administrators say they wish they had more parents like Maiden, who work to expose their children to reading and other skills.

"It's that exposure to having books from the beginnings of their lives ... that makes a big difference," said Nancy Renfrow, Zen's teacher at Coleridge-Taylor. She said she doesn't expect her students to come in reading, like Zen did, but having a familiarity with books helps get her class started on the right track.

A growing group of people have expressed concern that children are not being read to often enough to really develop key pre-literacy skills in the first several years of life. Earlier this year, the American Association of Pediatrics issued a policy recommending that pediatric providers urge parents to read to their young children, beginning in infancy up through at least kindergarten.

JCPS is working with partner organizations like the library to try to ensure that more young children are getting access to books and early learning resources.

"We're really starting to, nationwide, begin to understand that we have kids coming into kindergarten that already have an achievement gap," said Kevin Nix, JCPS' director of early childhood education. "If you're starting at a two-year deficit, where are you going to be two years from there?"

Going into school ready to read has increased in importance over the years as expectations continue to rise for kindergarten, experts say.

"Kindergarten is different today than what it was 20 years ago," said Margie Gillis, president of Connecticut-based Literacy How. She said increasing standards, such as the Common Core standards, means students are expected to do more by the end of kindergarten.

But on the flip side, she said the increasing expectations in early grades also means that teachers and others are more quickly identifying kids without foundational reading and other skills.

The fact is that some students simply don't get as much exposure to books and early learning. Often, students in higher-income families are exposed to more books, words and experiences than children in lower-income families.

Indeed, studies have shown that children from the highest income groups and lowest income groups have dramatically different vocabularies. One study found that an average child in a professional family would come into contact with about 45 million words in the first four years of life, while the average child in a welfare family would have heard about 13 million words.

"Most of the time, if you tell me what's the percentage of kids on free and reduced-price lunch, I can tell you what's the percentage of kids that are not kindergarten-ready," Munoz said.

Of course, Zen falls into that lower-income category, according to her mother. But Maiden said she has focused on instilling a love of reading into Zen.

"Before she was born, she had 70 books," Maiden said. "As soon as she came out, it was like, books books books."

Reporter Allison Ross can be reached at (502) 582-4241. Follow her on Twitter at @allisonSross.